


there's knocking on the door but no one's home to answer

by CallMeBombshell



Category: Dollhouse
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-02-15
Updated: 2012-02-15
Packaged: 2017-10-31 05:45:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 481
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/340580
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CallMeBombshell/pseuds/CallMeBombshell
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She forgets, sometimes, that while she controls the house and her dolls, while she can make people appear and disappear at will, can change who a person is, down to their deepest, darkest places, there is still a world outside her tasteful decor and the office that she practically lives in.</p>
            </blockquote>





	there's knocking on the door but no one's home to answer

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into Русский available: [Стучатся в дверь, но никого нет дома](https://archiveofourown.org/works/745642) by [krapivka37](https://archiveofourown.org/users/krapivka37/pseuds/krapivka37)



> Written for the [A Softer World Multifandom ficathon](http://roslindi.livejournal.com/7412.html).
> 
> Prompt: _The world isn't going to end just because we've done everything wrong. Though, that would be easier._

She forgets, sometimes, that while she controls the house and her dolls, while she can make people appear and disappear at will, can change who a person is, down to their deepest, darkest places, there is still a world outside her tasteful decor and the office that she practically lives in. 

Sometimes she even forgets that hers isn't the only House, forgets there there are others, that there is a higher power that she must answer to. Sometimes she forgets that there is always someone watching, judging, waiting for her to screw up badly enough that they come down to wrest control from her hands even as she fights, kicking and screaming and clawing, to get it back. And even when she remembers, sometimes she finds herself flirting with it, bending the rules just a little, just enough, because even when she remembers, she likes the feeling of playing God, creating people out of nothing.

If she were more altruistic, maybe, she could have been a therapist, or a social worker, or maybe she would have been one of those women on cable, the ones with the makeover shows, taking worn-out people and making them new and shiny again. But she's never been caring enough for that. She tells Topher once that he's like a child, playing with people the way other kids play with toys, and carefully forgets that she's often much the same.

The problem with running a House, she thinks in the rare, quiet moments when she actually lets herself think about her life, is that it's all too easy to forget that actions always have consequences. After all, that's exactly what she sells everyday: the chance to do the things you've never been able to do, because at the end of it all, the slate will be wiped clean and no one will ever be the wiser.

And then something does go wrong, someone gets hurt, or a client turns out to be insane, or someone's payment doesn't go through, and suddenly the world is crashing down, the order that she's so used to is thrown into chaos, her carefully crafted smiles not armor enough for the days when nothing goes right and she throws open the blinds, expects to see clouds and smoke and fire outside, expects at least to find headlines on the news, the radio blaring out her mistakes for all to hear.

But instead there's just the world, going about it's business like always, people living their lives, and she doesn't understand it at all, doesn't understand how everything can be in ruins with nothing at all to show for it. 

Because sometimes _(often, mostly, always)_ she forgets that there's another world out her, that her own small ones exists in it's shadow, unseen, unheard, unnoticed by everyone else. 

There is a real world out there, and it doesn't even know she exists.


End file.
